


Shimmer

by Wanderer



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:39:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderer/pseuds/Wanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, being a badass is even harder than it looks.  Even for John Reese.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shimmer

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of an AU.

Shimmer

 

It was nothing solid, nothing recognizable that Reese could put his finger on.  Another man might’ve called it good luck.  Reese didn’t see it that way.  For a long time, he’d felt he was – for lack of a better word - cursed. 

Whatever you wanted to call it, the truth was, he should’ve been dead by now. 

Finch had once said, “I know exactly everything about you, Mr. Reese.” 

Reese could’ve told him just how wrong he was about that.  Except he’d never told anyone about it.

While Reese was recovering from his wounds, he asked Finch how long it had taken to get him to Dr. Madani, the night Snow’s sniper had shot him. 

“Thirty two minutes, I believe,” Finch replied, with his usual precision.  “Traffic was heavy that night.  Besides, I felt I needed to put some distance between you and the CIA, before it was safe to stop.  Why?”  He looked a bit stiff, maybe even defensive.  Like he thought Reese was questioning that decision.

Reese combined subtle reassurance and evasion in a casual shrug.  “You were right about that.  I just don’t remember much of it, that’s all.”

That seemed to do the trick.  Finch let it go, probably thinking that Reese was just satisfying his curiosity.  He wasn’t.  He didn’t ask Finch for any more details about his shooting, but that didn’t mean he’d stopped thinking about it.  The problem was, Reese remembered enough about that night to know it had happened again. 

 _Damn it_.

Things about his shooting just didn’t add up.  He’d been shot twice, and though he’d managed to tie his belt in a rough tourniquet around his wounded leg, he’d passed out after that.  And Finch had been busy driving, so no one had been putting pressure on the other wound in his gut.

 _I_ _should’ve bled a lot more_. 

He’d killed enough people, in various messy ways, to be something of an expert on the subject. Before Finch pulled him out of the car, woozy as he was, he’d shot a look behind him, at the Lincoln’s back seat.  The bloodstains there were way too small.  Barely puddle-size, when they should’ve looked more like lakes. 

He’d known something wasn’t quite right that night.  Though the pain had been searing, just before he’d passed out, he’d noticed that his blood just seemed to be seeping slowly, rather than pouring out like it should’ve, from such severe wounds.  And just before he’d passed out, he’d _seen_ it – or at least, he’d thought he had.  A strange sort of flicker of light over the bullet wounds in his leg and abdomen.  A weird shimmer at the very edge of his vision, or maybe his perceptions.  Reese had no idea what it was.  Maybe it wasn’t light at all, but something he had no frame of reference for, and no better way of describing.  Or for all he knew, it could be an illusion.  Just his mind playing tricks on him because he’d been badly hurt.  It was always so fleeting, he was never sure he’d actually seen it himself.  All he knew was, it only happened when he was about to die.

He’d been close then.  It was why he’d called Finch, when he’d been staggering downstairs in that parking garage.  _I just wanted to say thanks.  For giving me a second chance_.  He’d been sure he wouldn’t make it out, and he’d wanted to say goodbye.  He’d known from experience that his wounds were severe enough to kill almost anyone.

Anyone, it seemed, except John Reese. 

Finch believed Reese had lived because he’d gotten him to a surgeon relatively quickly.  Much though he appreciated Finch’s courageous rescue, Reese had his doubts about that.

He’d seen lots of men die from just one bullet wound, and he’d had two.  One in his gut, which was one of the worst, most painful and dangerous places to get shot in; and he was pretty sure the other in his leg had nicked his femoral artery.  Not to mention that thirty two minute delay afterwards, when he’d laid there bleeding in Finch’s car…  It’d probably really been more like forty minutes, all told, from the time he’d been shot until that surgeon got to him.  A long time, for a man who’d been shot twice.

 _I should’ve probably bled out, or died from shock or even septicemia, after_.  _That morgue Finch took me to wasn’t exactly sterile._

But it wasn’t the first time Reese had survived things he shouldn’t have. 

The first time they met, Finch said, “I know you’ve spent the last couple of months trying to drink yourself to death.  I know you’re contemplating more efficient ways to do it.”

Reese couldn’t believe Finch knew all that.  Still, Finch always chose his words carefully, and he’d said “contemplating more efficient ways”, not “attempting” them.  Which meant that Finch’s knowledge of him wasn’t as comprehensive as he thought.  By then, Reese had done a lot more than just contemplate faster ways of killing himself.  He’d tried several. 

Still, how the hell had Finch known he was even _thinking_ about death?  Sure, he’d been drinking heavily, but so did lots of people, and they weren’t all trying to kill themselves.  He hadn’t come up as a Number, either, since the Machine wasn’t set up to prevent suicides.  Had Finch just made a shrewd assumption, that anyone who’d sunk as low as Reese had would naturally think about ending it all? 

If so, he wasn’t far wrong.  Reese had thought about it carefully.  Maybe even obsessively.  Being homeless meant that he rarely had any privacy, but he hadn’t wanted to kill himself out in public, so he’d panhandled sometimes, to get enough money to rent rooms in cheap flophouses.  He’d wanted to die with some dignity, when and how he chose, and without strangers watching.  So he’d used those rooms when he’d tried to kill himself.

But he hadn’t talked about his plans to end it all.  He’d had no one to talk to -- he’d always been alone in those rooms.  So how had Finch known Reese was getting so impatient to die that he’d felt alcohol wasn’t getting the job done fast enough, either? 

Finch must’ve hired a P.I. or someone like that to follow him.  Back then, Reese might not have noticed. 

Reese shook his head ruefully, remembering those days.  How careless, how deeply in despair and sloppy he’d been.  The CIA thought he was dead, and he’d felt safe.  Convinced no one on earth was looking for him, and owning nothing anyone would want to steal, he hadn’t always been careful about locking doors behind him.  Someone could’ve probably just walked in, or picked the locks to his cheap rented rooms, especially after he’d passed out from drinking. 

 _Maybe I did talk, without knowing it.  Since Finch knew,_ _I must’ve talked about it in my sleep._

A well-placed audio bug would’ve picked up even faint mumbles like that.  Reese knew, because he’d used them to listen to dreaming whispers from other men himself.

_Or maybe Finch had–_

No.  Reese just didn’t want to go there.

He’d comforted himself many times with the thought that surely even Finch didn’t know about _that_ – about why he’d failed to kill himself.  If Finch had, he’d’ve been asking questions, wouldn’t he? 

Reese sometimes wondered why he didn’t.  Why Finch never seemed to question the fact that a trained CIA agent had chosen such an inefficient method as drinking to kill himself with; or his amazing luck at surviving, once he’d given up on alcohol and started to work the Numbers.  Did Finch think most people would’ve lived after being shot twice, then tossed around in the back of a speeding car with one major bullet wound bleeding unchecked and another barely tied off for over 30 minutes, like Reese just had?  Would anyone else have lived, if they’d been locked in the trunk of a car that’d been set on fire?  And what about any of the hundred other lethal situations Finch knew Reese had gotten out of, while working for him?  Did he think it was normal for John to beat the odds so often?  Granted, Reese was tough and strong, and his training had been extensive; but weren’t the odds astronomically against _anyone_ managing all that, no matter their training?

Either Finch had a touching (or was that scary?) amount of faith in Reese’s abilities, or…

Then again, most of the time, Reese was glad Finch didn’t question his incredible survival rate.  He wouldn’t have known how to answer him if he did.  He didn’t want to talk about his secret.  He usually didn’t even like thinking about it.

But sometimes he was forced to; and then it creeped him out so much, he wished he _could_ talk to Finch about it.

It’d started before Finch even found him.  Back when Reese was homeless, living on the streets and experimenting with faster ways to kill himself than drinking.  He’d tried poison first.  He’d added strychnine to his liquid diet, but he’d just had stomach cramps as a result.  Mystified, he’d tried drinking a whole bottle of strychnine next.  That, he knew, would kill anyone. 

Anyone, it seemed, except John Reese.  To his astonished horror, he’d just vomited the poison back up a short time later.  He’d hated the smell and the mess.  So he’d stolen a large knife, sharpened the blade, and tried to cut his throat instead.   The strange thing was, though, the knife’s handle kept turning in his hand.  He’d tried it ten times, but only managed a slight cut to the side of his neck.  He’d kept missing his carotid completely.  He couldn’t believe it.  He’d wiped the knife handle repeatedly, but it wasn’t slick enough to account for the slippage; and his hands were still strong, so it wasn’t his grip, either.  The tenth time, when the knife turned stubbornly in his hand again, the sharp edge of the blade flipping out away from his skin as if it had a will of its own, he’d let out a roar of anguish and frustration. 

Fuck!  He was a trained assassin!  How could he fail at a task he knew so well, that many times?  

That was the first time he saw it.  Clenching his teeth on a snarl, he’d gripped the knife fiercely in both hands, and raised it to his throat again stubbornly – but then dropped it, with a gasp.

Because just for an instant, a strange shimmer had danced along the blade of the knife.  Then, before the knife even hit the floor, the odd flicker of light had vanished.

Reese had seen so much, done so much by then, he’d believed nothing could faze him anymore.  But that had.  He’d stared at the knife, stunned and a bit afraid.  Two determined suicide attempts had left him with nothing but an unpleasant bout of stomach cramps, and a shallow cut on his neck.  Any fool would’ve known that couldn’t happen, unless – unless _something_ was –

No.  That was impossible!

He’d told himself he was just too drunk to hold onto the knife properly.  But that wasn’t true.  He knew his own capabilities, and he should’ve been able to manage that even if he’d been hammered. But he’d actually been fairly sober at the time.  He’d also tried telling himself he’d hallucinated the whole thing; but since he hadn’t been drunk, that didn’t seem likely either.  Still, he’d thrown the knife away without trying again. 

But Reese had always been stubborn. 

When all his attempts to die in private failed, he’d given up on that idea, and reluctantly decided to try something more public.  He’d thought of a way to die that would kill him so fast, he wouldn’t care if anyone else was watching, because he’d be gone in seconds.  And in a part of his mind he didn’t even want to acknowledge, he’d also wondered if maybe that weird flicker of light might not happen, if he tried doing it differently this time.  Killing himself somewhere out in  view of others.

A day later, he’d stood by a busy street, watching the traffic.  Timing it carefully, and watching for an inattentive, speeding driver.  He didn’t have long to wait.  At just the right moment, he’d leapt out in front of an oncoming SUV whose driver was talking on a cell phone.  But somehow, the driver swerved at the last minute, horn blaring angrily as he hit his brakes so hard they shrieked.  The SUV had fishtailed a bit, its front bumper clipping Reese’s knee.  The impact knocked him off of his feet, throwing him towards the sidewalk.  He’d rolled into the gutter, bruised but once again, very much alive.

“You stupid ASSHOLE!  Watch where you’re GOING!” the driver had screamed, while Reese lay in the gutter.  Then he’d driven off, without bothering to check if he was alive or dead.

Reese wanted to scream himself, though not at the SUV’s driver.  He’d been too frustrated by yet another failure, to give a damn about the driver’s cruelty.  He’d been trying to convince himself that his previous two suicide attempts had failed because he’d just been so drunk, he’d somehow botched them.  He’d half convinced himself that weird flicker of light had just been delirium tremens, too.

After that, he’d known better.

He hadn’t actually seen the shimmer that time; but it had to have been there.  He’d picked that SUV because its driver had been speeding, going at least twenty miles over the limit, and distracted by his phone conversation as well.  His vehicle had been hurtling at Reese way too fast for its inattentive driver to have reacted fast enough to miss him, under normal circumstances.

Lying there in that filthy gutter with his knee throbbing viciously, Reese snarled to himself.  This was anything _but_ normal.  How had his life (and even his death) gotten so fucking _weird_?

Shaken in ways that weren’t physical, he’d given up on more direct methods of suicide after that, and gone back to alcohol with a vengeance.  That seemed to work.  Whatever that strange flicker of light was, it didn’t seem to react to slow alcohol poisoning.  He never saw it while he was drinking.  It only seemed to happen when he was in imminent danger of death. 

By that point, Reese was just grateful that he still had some way, any way to kill himself -- slow or not.

He hadn’t wanted to think any more about the fucking shimmer, whatever it was.  He hadn’t been sober long enough to try to analyze what was happening, or more importantly, _why_.  He’d started drinking more heavily than ever, and he’d been too far gone to care.  The only thing he’d cared about was that he couldn’t seem to die as fast as he wanted to.  He’d wanted to die so _badly_. 

Not because he thought he could be with Jessica again, though.  He’d never believed that.  He wasn’t religious, but being homeless and jobless had given him a lot of time to think; and Jessica’s death had made him wonder about a lot of things he’d never considered before.  Given all the terrible things he’d done, he figured if there was any kind of life after death, his would be awful.  He’d hurt, tortured and killed so many people, he had to be destined for punishment, for retribution of the most savage kind. 

But Jessica was different.  She’d been kind, a nurse who’d spent most of her life healing and helping people.  Doubtful as Reese was about religion, he still liked to think she’d earned an afterlife, a better one.  He liked to imagine that she was in a beautiful place now.  Someplace warm, filled with sunlight and peace, where she got all the love he’d never been smart enough to give her.  And if that was a cliché, he didn’t give a shit.  It was what she deserved, so he hoped it was true.

In his worst moments, he’d thought that if Hell really did exist, even if all the things he’d done for the CIA hadn’t doomed him to it, the fact that he’d failed to save Jessica would have.  But whether death was the end or just a gateway to something worse, he’d just wanted to die and end his worthless, useless life. 

Back then, he’d fucking _hated_ that weird, barely there flicker of light that kept him from it.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about it now.  He tried not to think about it at all.  Though Finch sometimes seemed to think so, Reese wasn’t courting death anymore.  He’d left that behind him, because Finch had given him a reason to live.  But it still made Reese… uneasy, when he emerged alive from seemingly lethal situations. 

He tried not to imagine who – or what – else might be intervening on his behalf, or why.  But sometimes, late at night, he couldn’t help it.  He’d lie in bed and wonder…   If he wasn’t just imagining things, if his life really was being prolonged somehow, how long would it last?  How long would the shimmer haunt him? 

He had no way of knowing.

Sometimes he tried to tell himself it was a good thing.  But he couldn’t understand how he could possibly deserve to be rescued from death, time and time again.  He’d been a killer, a torturer -- a monster.  It seemed far more likely that the shimmer was meant as punishment.  He’d certainly seen it that way, when he was homeless. 

One night, a really dark thought crossed his mind.  Maybe the point of the shimmer wasn’t really his survival, but keeping him alive so he could be tortured repeatedly.  After all, the shimmer didn’t stop him from being horribly injured.  It hadn’t kept him from being shot, stabbed or nearly blown up, or from the agony he’d suffered whenever he’d come close to dying. 

Did someone (or worse, some _thing_ ) want him to suffer all that, over and over again?  Was the shimmer even worse than a curse?  Was it some sort of foretaste of Hell?

Reese didn’t scare easily, but the very thought of that sent cold shivers down his spine.

So he told himself that was bullshit.  There was no God, no Devil, no Heaven, no Hell.  And no shimmer, either. 

He hadn’t really been cheating death with the aid of some mysterious, supernatural force.  Finch was right; Reese was just fucking _great_ at surviving.

The shimmer was just an illusion, or a hallucination.  Whatever.  Maybe it was just a figment of Reese’s imagination, or some weird reaction to extreme stress or blood loss or something.  Or maybe he had some form of PTSD, that messed with his head sometimes.

Who the hell knew?

 _Did Finch_? 

That thought kept Reese awake sometimes.  It seemed impossible, since Reese had never spoken of it to anyone.  But Finch was brilliant, driven, and like he’d often said, “a sucker for surveillance.”  Just how far had Finch gone to collect information on him, back when he was homeless?

Finch must’ve paid someone to follow him.  The question was, had Finch’s operative done more than just bug Reese’s rooms for audio?  Had he placed hidden cameras there, too?  Did Finch have really good surveillance footage of his failed suicide attempts, and had that shimmer somehow showed up on it?  Was that why Finch had taken a chance on him?  Was that why his neat, fastidious boss had plucked a dirty, homeless drunk like Reese off the streets and made him his partner, instead of someone -- hell, _anyone –_ else?  And was _that_ why Finch never questioned Reese’s ability to survive just about anything?

Had Finch picked him for this job because he _knew_? 

Reese wasn’t sure what creeped him out more – thinking the shimmer might be real, or that Finch might know about it, and that he’d kept that knowledge a secret.  That the shimmer, rather than Finch himself, might be responsible for his new life.  His second chance.

He told himself that couldn’t be true.  Finch would never do that – send him out into danger over and over again, knowing he could be terribly hurt but not killed, like some fucking mutant super soldier.

That was something the CIA would’ve done to him.  Finch would never use him like that.

Reese told himself firmly that he needed to stop even thinking about crazy shit like that, and keep his mind focused on the Numbers.

*******************************************************

Reese toweled himself off mechanically, his hands trembling a little with weariness.  In the past seventy two hours, he’d been shot at twice, stabbed, and narrowly missed being blown up by a car bomb. 

 _And it’s only Wednesday_ , he thought ruefully.

Still wearing only a towel, he eased himself down on his bed with a sigh.  It’d been a long three days, and he’d hardly gotten any sleep.  Who’d have thought a quiet, 52-year-old elementary school teacher with an otherwise boring life could wind up in such a tight spot?  Then again, if she hadn’t been about to inherit a ton of money from her wealthy father, and if she hadn’t had an ex-con nephew like Leroy Wilks who saw her as an obstacle to getting his own hands on that money, she wouldn’t have, he thought wryly. 

But at least Mrs. Henders was safe now.

Reese had a few more scars to show for protecting their latest Number, though.  The bomb Wilks had planted on the underside of Mrs. Henders’ Subaru had caught him by surprise one morning, and blown him across the street and into a parked car.  His left side was black and blue from his knee to his ribs.  The gunshot wound on his bicep (also courtesy of Wilks) was more like a graze, though, and had already started to heal.  He checked the bandage absently, decided it didn’t need one anymore, and tore it off.  It was the stab wound in his abdomen that needed tending now.

Wilks wasn’t responsible for that one.  Seemed he had a girlfriend with a hunting knife, who’d caught Reese by surprise while he was struggling with Wilks. 

Reese grinned wryly to himself.  Theresa Whitaker had slashed his hand with a boxcutter, and she was just a slip of a girl -- a teenager.  Now a woman barely five feet four had stabbed him.  It was getting embarrassing.

_If I keep getting my ass kicked by girls, Finch is gonna start making jokes about it._

Embarrassing or not, though, the stab wound had to be dealt with.  He took out his little first aid kit with surgical needles and thread, gauze and the Lidocaine he’d stocked up on for moments like this, and injected himself.  Once the drug took effect, he picked up a needle and wearily started to sew.  His hands were shaking enough to make neat stitches difficult, but he carried on anyway, pushing with his last reserves of energy to get it done.

 _Finally_.  Finished, Reese flopped back onto his bed like a toppled tree.  His eyes closed instantly.  He told himself he was just going to rest them for a second.  Then he’d get up and put his boxers on, and slide under his blankets.

He fell asleep before he could finish the thought.

********************************************************

“John.” 

Reese was standing in a garden, sunlit and green, surrounded by flowers and trees.  A soft breeze rustled the leaves, and ran teasing fingers through his hair.  He felt very content, until a familiar voice called to him. 

He turned.   _Jessica_. 

She wore something light that seemed to float around her.  She looked beautiful, and though she smiled as sweetly as he remembered, his own answering smile was only a faint shadow of hers.  Love and longing twisted so powerfully inside him, he could hardly breathe.  He knew there was a reason they weren’t together, but in his dream, he couldn’t remember what it was.  He just knew he ached for her.

“John.”

She came close to him and he realized, she wasn’t just vibrant -- she was actually glowing softly.  He longed to touch her, but somehow, that odd glow kept him from doing it.  It was like that time he’d run into her in the airport, he thought sadly.  She’d been so close, yet with his CIA handler watching, he’d had to keep his hands to himself.  This felt just like that -- like he could only look at her, but he wasn’t allowed to touch. 

“Your survival isn’t a curse, John,” Jessica said, and he’d missed her so much, her voice sounded like music.  “Don’t you see?”

“No.”  He shook his head.  He’d never understood that.  Besides, he was too busy drinking her in with his eyes to pay really close attention to what she was saying.

She tilted her head and touched his face tenderly, in a way that was achingly familiar.  “You once told me that we’re all alone, and no one’s coming to save us.  That’s not true.  You’re never alone, John.  You never will be.  I –”

Suddenly, a loud, blaring noise filled Reese’s ears.  He startled awake suddenly, sitting up with a jolt.  His heart pounded, and his throat was dry with longing.  For a minute, his thoughts were confused, so jumbled that he didn’t know where he was. 

Somewhere in the street below, a police siren shrieked.  He tensed for a second, then realized the cops weren’t coming for him.  The cruiser went on by, and its siren started to fade off into the distance. 

He blinked, feeling jarred, off-kilter, almost desperate, without knowing why.  Looking down, he saw that he’d fallen asleep on top of his covers, with just his towel slung around his hips.  It’d come undone during the night, so he was naked and chilled.  But the cold didn’t bother him as much as the sense that he’d woke up too soon, that that siren had interrupted something.

He had a feeling he’d been dreaming about something important, but he couldn’t quite remember what…  Had he been talking to someone?  Someone he knew?  He closed his eyes, trying to hold onto the sensations the dream had left behind. 

But all he had were jumbled impressions:  flowers, longing and pain... and was there something about a curse?  He frowned.  There was something there, something he’d been trying to understand, something he needed to know – but it was all mixed up.  He couldn’t remember the details, couldn’t put it all together into a picture that made sense.  But he wondered…

_Was I dreaming about the shimmer?_

He concentrated until his head ached.  But the harder he tried to hold onto them, the faster it seemed the last fragments of his dream slipped away.  Finally he was left with nothing but a sense of emptiness, of sadness.

Reese reached up to rub his face, wondering what he’d lost.  When he found tears on his cheeks, he knew.  It hadn’t been the shimmer.  He closed his eyes again, his heart contracting.

 _I must’ve dreamed about Jessica_.  She was the only reason he ever cried.

Despite that, he wished he could remember it.

 _You’re pathetic.  It was just a dream_ , he told himself harshly.

But they were all he had left of her now.  Dreams and memories.  He breathed out a sigh, already knowing he’d ache inside, vainly and uselessly, all day. 

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he hung his head for a minute.  _You’ve gotta move on.  Get over it_ , he told himself, like he always did.  It never helped.  Some mornings, he just felt so alone.  But he forced his eyes open again, scrubbed the cold tear tracks roughly from his face, and made himself get up out of bed anyway.

A cup of coffee would help.  Talking to Finch would help, too. 

Besides – sad dreams and freaky curses (or whatever) notwithstanding, he had work to do.

 _The Numbers never stop coming_.

 

Finis

Comments are always welcome. : )


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